Jane Hamsher Calls Bullshit On Rahm Emmanuel’s ‘This Week’ Appearance

STEPHANOPOLOUS: The President has ruled out prosecutions of CIA officials who believed they were following the law. Does he believe the officials who devised the policies should be immune from prosecution?

RAHM: Yeah, what he believes is, look, as you saw in that statement he wrote. And I think, just take a step back. That he came up with this, and he worked on this for four weeks. Wrote that statement Wednesday night, after he made his decision, and dictated what he wanted to see and then Thursday morning I saw him in the office, he was still editing it. He believes that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided. They shouldn’t be prosecuted.

STEPHANOPOLOUS: But what bout those who devised the policies?

RAHM: But those who devised the policies –he believes that they were — should not be prosecuted either. And it’s not the place that we go — as he said in that letter, and I really recommend that people look at that full statement. Not the letter, the statement. In that second paragraph: This is not a time for retribution. It’s a time for reflection. It is not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back, and in a sense of anger and retribution. We have a lot to do to protect America. What people need to know, this practice and technique, we don’t useany more. He banned it.

Is that truly what the administration thinks? That people who want to see those who illegally led the country down the road of torture held to account are simply “looking back” in “anger” and “retribution”? Fifty percent of the country favor such investigations, including 69% of Democrats and a majority of independents. Is Rahm saying that President Obama believes they’re nothing more than an angry, vindictive mob, and that nobody could possibly have a rational basis for believing that our laws should be enforced?

The United States, like all other states that are part of the U.N. convention against torture, is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court.

How does Rahm rationalize the President’s stated goal to “restore our moral standing” in the world with thumbing our noses at the international agreements we’ve entered into? Is there an “except when we don’t feel like it” clause?

The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but nearly 25% of its prisoners. There is something terribly inconsistent about a Senior Administration official like Rahm Emanuel insisting that an elite few should not be subject to our laws, and that people who take issue with this have no higher motive than counterproductive rage.

Sign the petition telling Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture here.